An Auckland woman jailed this month for using fake documents to try to smuggle a baby from China was married to an alleged international "drug lord" who she sponsored for residency.
Hai Yan (Shirley) Luo was this month sentenced to a total of three years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges brought under the Immigration Act and Tax Administration Act.
Luo, 46, had presented false documents in 2012 to support a story that she had given birth to a baby in China, fathered by her husband Xiang Hua Zeng. She had requested that the baby be added to her husband's application for residency and used false information on a visitor application for the baby.
Zeng's application for New Zealand residency was delayed - and eventually denied - because of suspicions about his identity.
The Herald can reveal that Zeng is also known as Guoming Chen. He left New Zealand in September 2012, the same year his wife, Luo, was presenting bogus documents to immigration officials regarding the baby.
Zeng was returned to China after being arrested in Fiji in July 2013, according to media reports.
Immigration NZ has confirmed his dual identity and police confirmed Guoming Chen was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice brought by China in 2011.
Immigration NZ spokeswoman Andrea Birtwistle told the Herald that Zeng's residency application was finally declined in November 2012, four years after he applied. That decision came two months after he left New Zealand on a flight to Hong Kong.
Red Notices are an alert indicating the person is wanted by a national jurisdiction for prosecution.
The Police were contacted by Immigration about two weeks before Zeng left New Zealand.
The information supplied by the Chinese authorities as part of the Red Notice was not regarded by police as sufficient to seek a warrant for his arrest from the New Zealand courts, spokesman Grant Ogilvie said.
Police had assisted Immigration NZ in an investigation into Zeng's identity "including liaison with Chinese authorities" but it was not until after he left that it was proven he had used a false identity.
Chinese authorities claimed he was a "drug lord" who ran a drug trafficking ring in Guangdong, according to a 2014 report in the national English news weekly, the Beijing Review. Quoting a Ministry of Public Security official, it said he was brought back to China after spending six years on the run in New Zealand and Fiji.
According to documents filed with the Waitakere District Court, Luo married Zeng in 2008 and then sponsored him for residency.
Luo first arrived in New Zealand in 1999 and the following year gained residency on the basis of her marriage to a New Zealand citizen.
That marriage was presumably dissolved and she married Zeng.
His residency application was held up due to "Immigration NZ concerns and difficulty in verifying his identity and information supplied with his application".
Between 2008 and 2011 Luo and Zeng set up the three companies involved in the tax evasion charges Luo has admitted. The amount of tax evaded was calculated at $423,909.
One of the companies owned a commercial premises in Ti Rakau Drive and the other two owned Kanda Sushi and Night Owl Bar and Restaurant which operated from the address.
Luo gave multiple fake documents to Immigration NZ during 2012 while trying to convince officials that she and Zeng were the biological parents of the baby and gain residency for the infant.
These included an ultrasound report, delivery record, birth certificate and an immunisation record.
Immigration uncovered that the baby was not her biological child and she had not legally adopted it.
In court her lawyer, David Jones, QC, referred to but did not detail a state of "turmoil" in Luo's private life that he said provided context to her offending.
Several attempts to reach Jones for comment were unsuccessful.
The Howick and Pakuranga Times reported in 2016 that it had seen an affidavit signed by Luo in which she claimed not to have known about her husband's illicit activities and to have divorced him when she discovered who he really was.
In essence, she claimed to have been duped by her husband at the same time she was trying to dupe New Zealand authorities about having had a baby.
Luo, was sentenced on June 20 to 26 months' imprisonment after pleading guilty to 17 charges of providing false or misleading information to an immigration officer about the birth of a child.
She was sentenced to a further 19 months on the tax charges.
Luo had earlier sought sentence indications and was given a discount for pleading guilty, saving the cost of a trial.
